For Prime Image, brevity is art. Or at least it's the art of making things more compact with a series of systems designed to time-condense programming without letting the viewer in on the secret.

At its Tuesday evening press conference, Prime Image President and CEO Peter J. Jegou told the gathering the company is growing into many new enterprise areas.

"We are setting a direction for this company with new technologies that will help this company grow into a very profitable enterprise over the next couple of years," Jegou said. "Prime Image is going to become a recognized leader in this industry and several others."

The company, part of the Harbor Business Group, announced it has signed a partnership with Digital Design Group Inc. DDG, a builder of video over IP systems for both the television and non-broadcast markets, is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.

Prime Image's family of time management systems has grown to include Time Tailor Digital, Time Tailor Post, Time Tailor Edit and now Time Tailor HD/SD, Time Tailor Post HD/SD and Time Tailor Edit HD/SD.

TIME REDUCTION

The full digital processing of Prime Image's Time Tailor HD/SD reduces a program's duration through a patented time-reduction process. Time reduction occurs in real-time without pre-recording, pre-processing or compromising the integrity of the program, and without any discernable video or audio effects when used judiciously.

Typically, a first-run broadcast time slot allows 24 to 25 minutes of actual program content, with the remaining five to six minutes used for commercials, promotional spots and public service announcements. When the shows are rebroadcast as reruns or in syndication by local, cable or satellite channels, they must run in 23 or 24 minutes. Previous methods of compressing the running time included editing out scenes, zipping through the credits or playing out the show at a higher than normal speed, which resulted in jerky motion.

Time Tailor Post and Time Tailor Post HD/SD add an interface to Editware's Fastrack TT controller, which fully automates the entire process. Time Tailor simultaneously rolls the source machine and the recorder to frame-accurately start playback, processing and recording.

During the time reduction process, the operator enters all necessary parameters including the source time code, record time code, the locations for insertion or removal of back segments or show material, and specifies the amount of time to be removed. In a single pass of the source material identified redundant frames are removed until the desired run length is met, even allowing for different percentages of frames to be removed from specified segments.

Prime Image also presented its HD/SD Pipeline, a system that offers audio/video delay for SD or HD content. HD/SD Pipeline provides up to six seconds of high-definition delay and up to 10 seconds of standard-definition delay. The HD/SD Pipeline features 10-bit video processing, with a primary video input that is complemented by an auxiliary/alternate video input. Audio processing is 24-bit, with four in and out channels, and four auxiliary/alternate audio channels. All audio channels are AES/EBU digital- or analog-selectable and can be switched with, or independent of auxiliary video.